New Haven Independent

Coe (pictured), a Yale anthropologist, asked that question directly to Yale officials Monday night.

He was referring to Yale’s planned new School of Management complex on Whitney Avenue across from the Peabody Museum. The retired Yale professor said he’d rather see creative re-use of existing architectural gems than demolition that makes way for construction of brand new buildings..

That was just one objection raised in the hour-plus meeting convened by the East Rock Management Team at East Rock Global Magnet School. Some 25 neighbors showed up. The main topic: The $145 million SOM campus, which won approval from the City Plan Commission last week. It next comes before the Board of Aldermen for final approval. (Click here for more on that.)

Coe said he lives on nearby St. Ronan Street. He used to work at 175 Whitney, a former Yale information tech center that’s now one of two adjacent buildings slated for demolition to make way for the “glass box” of the new SOM facility.

“I think when Yale looks to do something new, or expand something, they really could save what is there architecturally, which they often don’t do,” Coe said.

“And why is it that Oxford and Cambridge, for instance, our English counterparts, maintain themselves as two of the greatest universities in the entire world, and yet don’t tear down all their old architecture? If there’s an adaptive reuse, they figure out how to do it. But Yale goes ahead and bulldozes it, and then waits for the money to come in to build a glass box. I think this is a mistake.”

Laura Cruickshank (pictured), Yale’s director of university planning, construction and renovation facilities, explained the university’s thinking to the crowd.

She said the large structure — four stories high at some points, with underground parking — will be glass-walled in order to present a more inviting facade to passing pedestrians and motorists. It will have an inner courtyard and round “teaching pods” (“also known as classrooms,” quipped Yale Associate Vice-President Michael Morand) specifically designed to encourage interactions among students and professors.

Cruickshank said the greenspace surrounding the building will expand from 25 percent to 40 percent. The new building will assume the function of the dozen or so buildings — mostly converted large homes — a few blocks west of the site that now comprise SOM.

After Cruickshank’s presentation, about a dozen residents challenged various aspects of the project, mostly because of its size but also its design. Neighbor and Yale political scientist David Cameron said he got a degree from Dartmouth’s business school, which didn’t have a courtyard, and he didn’t suffer for it. “It’s wasted space,” he opined.

Cruickshank said Yale, being an urban institution, needs a courtyard, while perhaps Dartmouth, situated in rural Hanover, N.H., doesn’t. She said Yale’s team of planners had discussed all possible options “40 ways to Sunday” and had determined that the best plan was to demolish the existing buildings on the site and start from scratch.

She reminded the audience that “as of right” Yale could build on this property, which it already owns. It legally could have pursued a design as out-of-scale as the Kline Biology Tower, but didn’t consider that for the new SOM campus.